What happened when I tried to drown out my eating disorder with an addicting hallucinogenic drug.

When I was much younger I tried weed and for the most part, it didn’t do much for me. Cigarettes were easy to quit. Drinking seemed disgusting to me. I don’t have much experience with illegal drugs at all. It must be about once every 9 to 12 months that I decide I’ll become an alcoholic or druggie, thinking if only I could do that much, my eating disorder would be put on back burner. I’d rather have cancer than an eating disorder, that for sure! As for addictions to illegal drugs, I’ve never had that problem, so I don’t know what it’s like.

I couldn’t tell you when it was. I have it written down somewhere. I tried a drug. Yep, tried yet one more time to become a druggie. This time, I used something readily available that supposedly is like pot or a hallucinogen. It didn’t get rave reviews, I must admit, but I don’t personally know anyone who has gone this route. I told myself just how stupid this was, but ignored my own advice.

I didn’t give a shit how stupid, how damaging, how whatever it was going to be. All I wanted was to drown out my eating disorder with something else. It didn’t work, though. This is what happened:

I decided to try the drug. I told myself “This is stupid,” but did it anyway. I was disgusted and hated having an eating disorder. All I wanted was for it to go away.

The “reviews” I found stated that it has an unpleasant taste. That part didn’t bother me at all. After a while I really did get a “high.” I can’t say there was anything at all pleasant about it. But all at once, I told myself, “I don’t ever want to be *not high* again!” That makes no sense, of course. However, when you are high you don’t make much sense anyway.

That lasted a while, longer than was safe really. I was high for over a week straight, oh, ten days I guess, and then suddenly I was bored with it all. I wondered what would happen if I stopped cold turkey. That’s what I did, and nothing bad happened except I felt a LOT better not taking it!

It gave me embarrassing flatulence and almost immediately constipated me. I began to swell up, I assume because my kidneys had to work too hard to excrete various toxins. I started to feel terrible. I didn’t want to go out nor did I have motivation to do anything. I heard you can end up with a weird look in your eyes from it, but thankfully, my glasses are plenty thick and hide most irregularities. I was more tired than ever. I didn’t want to get out of bed.

One day, it dawned on me: “This is why I feel like crap. I need to stop.” And so, I made the decision to stop. I had no further interest in making myself more tired and more sick. To add insult to injury, I found that the drug also caused unwanted weight gain. I was so unhappy about that bit that I believe it was the deciding factor.

So for sure, I didn’t accomplish what I wanted. I wanted to get rid of my eating disorder, but trying to become a drug addict has failed the few times I’ve tried. I ended up furious about the weight gain, more upset and preoccupied with my weight than when I started. So instead of distracting me from my eating disorder, the drug made me sick and even more unhappy with my body.

The weight had come on fast and noticeable, so I felt embarrassed and self-conscious.After I got off the drug, I felt better within a day and the excess weight gradually came off. I’d say it took at least twice as long to come off as it took coming on,

I kept telling myself that this substance was dangerous except now and then, and there I was doing it nonstop for over a week. How dumb was that? The high protected me from being scared. I kept telling myself I didn’t care if I died. Everyone would quickly forget about me and maybe no one would ever know what really killed me.

Starvation protects a person, too. You know you could die, but you see yourself as only floating around in the world, just passing through. I remember going to bed every night wondering if I’d die in my sleep. I’m damn lucky I didn’t. The thing was, most of me was too far gone to care. I’d say a tiny bit of me was left that was desperately clinging to life.

What does it mean, to not even care if you live or die? If you are in an altered state you can’t think straight anyway. It’s not a good state to be in to make a major life decision. When you get out of “altered,” you look back and wonder what ever possessed you.